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LoR Competitive Week in Review for 2/28 - 3/7

When it comes to grassroots Legends of Runeterra, it would be fair to say I’ve been around the block a time or two. I’ve seen some things, and one of my least favorite things to see was when we couldn’t broadcast the finals of a tournament because neither party could stream (remember we went over a year without the ability to spectate games?). This week you all get to share in a similar experience with me, as there were no major (read: broadcasted 64+ player) grassroots tournaments to look at, meaning we’ve just got Fight Night: Legends results to go over. Luckily all 3 iterations are back in swing this week, and I’ll be expanding the view of these events to the top 4 rather than just the finals so we can get a better picture of what the meta is looking like as we’re still around 3 weeks out from our next balance patch.

Fight Night: Legends

BR

1st Ez2win Scouts / Sivir/Akshan / Demacia YiA

2nd Rodsmtg - Darkness / Zoe/Aphelios/Lux / Bandle Tree

3rd Capitao Serket - Ezreal/Caitlyn / Lux/Jayce / Gnar/Swain

4th Flay - Lux/Jayce / Ekko/Zilean / Pantheon/Taric/Yuumi

EU

1st Ghosterdriver - Scouts / Demacia YiA / Zed/Shen

2nd Broken Ball - Lee Sin / Lulu/Jinx / Bandle Tree

3rd BaJAtakk - Demacia YiA / Sivir/Akshan / Pantheon/Yuumi/Taric

4th Gouda Ddy - Scouts / Sivir/Akshan / Demacia YiA

AM

1st XxWhatAmIxX - Spiders / Pirates / Gnar/Ziggs

2nd FloppyMudkip - Scouts / Sivir/Akshan / Demacia YiA

3rd Mafraju - Lurk / Gnar/Swain / Ezreal/Sejuani 

4th Maxgotthetracks - Sivir/Akshan / Demacia YiA / Gnar Timelines

With all of the information out on the table, let's talk about the 3 most popular decks from the weekend that coincidentally made up one of the most successful lineups: Scouts, Sivir/Akshan, and Demacia YiA (4/5/6 representation respectively). Conceptually it’s pretty simple - either midrange-board-based decks are good or they aren’t, and right now they are. While each of these decks has their own tricks of the trade and some variations in playstyle, at the end of the day they’re similar enough that the call of ‘midrange good’ was enough to win 2 Fight Nights and get 2nd place at the 3rd. That said, it’s all kind of old news at this point. Scouts is the oldest competitive deck that’s still relevant today. Sure this iteration has some cool new tricks in Durand Sculptor and Petricite Broadwing, but it’s not flashy. I constantly struggle with my hatred of Demacia as a region (and trust me I’m in the pit of despair right now) and I think it does just boil down to the region not being flashy enough for me. Such is the turmoil of a caster, I suppose. 

As for some more exciting takes, nothing had quite the same stranglehold as our Demacian overlords this week so talking at length about anything else would have to be a little embellished. Luckily, I’m pretty good at that. First, we’re going to look at XxWhatAmIxX - the man who successfully took down Demacia. It’s worth mentioning that in the finals he banned Scouts and took a game 1 loss to Demacia Yordles in Arms, leaving him to 2-0 Sivir/Akshan. Now, this might not be the most consistent answer to the lineup if that's what you’re looking for, as not only is this a very small sample size but none of the AM Sivir/Akshan players elected to run Radiant Guardian. I would expect a more streamlined answer to (unfortunately) look more like the lineup BaJAtakk brought, which simply slotted out one of the decks for Pantheon/Yuumi. I’m still trying to wrap my head around Pantheon/Yuumi, as the stats on it from this week aren’t great. Sure, on paper it’s one of the best ladder decks as well as the shared weakness of Scouts, Sivir/Akshan, and Demacia YiA. Taking this week of Fight Night’s into account, however, it wasn’t unpopular per se, but it didn’t perform to the level you would expect from it’s resume. However, as I mentioned before, this is a pretty small sample size, so I’m willing to continue to hype up the deck for next week.

Finally, I want to touch a little on Lux/Jayce. Now, admittedly, the regionally isolated meta of Fight Night Brazil tends to look pretty different from the more uniform combination of EU and AM. But during the Magic Misadventure Season they had enough success pushing Lux/Jayce that a few star players from around the world took notice, and currently, the deck is absolutely destroying Scouts on ladder (again, small sample size). Now I’m not saying that the deck is going to find the success I’m pushing onto Pantheon/Yuumi, but we have another case of a deck that on paper can do some big things. If the meta is big on Demacia, it means that it’s rather light on removal for larger units. Darkness is a deck that’s already taking advantage of this gap in the meta by letting Veigar stick around for as long as he likes, but the same logic extends to Lux. Heck, we might even see things like Heimerdinger making a comeback. Of course you do have to be wary of all the challengers, and the rallys with the challengers even if it's not your turn, but you knew that there were risks. “The meta is light on big removal” is not a guarantee that your 4 health units are going to live for as long as you don’t send them into combat, but more of an observation to nudge you along the deck building process if you were looking for a profound sounding exploit to the current landscape. 

With 3 weeks left until the patch I expect we’ll continue to see a lot of Demacia for the foreseeable future, and as unexciting as it may seem, the answer to it may be even more Demacia. With complaints continuing to also stack against Bandle City, it makes sense that the deck combining the two seems to be the best deck at the moment, at least based on these tournament results (and ladder, but hey, who’s counting). That said, the success of both Scouts and Sivir/Akshan has been pretty volatile in the past, with huge spikes one week followed by a total absence the next, so if you hate either of those decks I wouldn’t take this as a sign to hunker down for the long winter just yet. Smarter minds than mine are hard at work searching for the counter, and when they find it, I’ll be here to tell you all about it.

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